The Snapshot Century

These images are from a collection of several thousand snapshots I've been building since the mid 1970s. They range from small round prints from the #1 Kodak, first taken in 1888, to Polaroids from the 1980s, near the end of the snapshot century and just before the beginning of the digital age.

Some of them are here because they are humorous, some because they show historic events, important places, or famous people from ground level, so to speak. Others have an accidental surrealism of unexpected juxtapositions, or a simple purity of vision. Some unconsciously anticipate artistic conventions and movements decades in the future. Then there are the mistakes: double exposures, cut-off heads, fingers in front of the lens. But most of all there are the family snapshots, the records of milestones large and small, the joys and sadness across seasons and generations, the complex skeins of relationships, the simple pleasures of daily life. Snapshots are - some of the best of them, anyway - the most intimate of photographs, depicting subtleties of the human condition in ways that more ambitious images seldom achieve.

More often than not, use of the word snapshot in describing a photograph involves somewhat negative connotations. This, I think, results from a confusion of means and ends: something made with simple equipment, or for simple reasons can't possibly result in a complex visual statement. Hmm. Right now I'm looking at an inch-thick 2007 catalog in my bookcase from the National Gallery of Art, in Washington, DC, "The Art Of The American Snapshot." The title says it all. I hope this gallery does the same.

These small prints have been an important influence on my own work as a photographer. I have always tried to approach the degree of transparency, directness, and honesty that even the most ordinary snapshots routinely capture. As the great cultural historian John Kouwenhoven has written, we live in a snapshot world, one in which our very conceptions of ourselves are in large part formed by humble snapshots. See the rest of my website for many examples of my work by clicking on the house icon to the left of the title at the top of this page Click the Back arrow to return here.

The photographs are arranged in roughly chronological order. Often the dates and other data I've attributed are guesses; any corrections or comments from viewers will be greatly appreciated.

Leave a comment here (a comment box is below each photo on the right), or email me directly at: rpkphoto@comcast.net.